I am a very slow writer. As a result, posts on this blog tend to lag what I am currently thinking and doing. This page gets updated (mostly) whenever I start or stop something and is therefore fairly up to date.

TL;DR

Our upcoming schedule:

• Sep-Nov: walk the Camino from Porto and then to Málaga, Spain for Jackie’s immersive Spanish classes
• Nov 13-17: Columbus for mom’s birthday!!
• Thanksgiving-Xmas: Back in the Bay Area for holidays?
• Jan-Feb?: Jackie in TW to settle mom’s estate. Mark either TW or Portland?
• 2027: We plan to be based in Portland/Vancouver and be somewhere else during the worst of winter for Jackie’s sake. This might change if Mark ends up working with a nonprofit / university or Jackie finds a place that would enable her to put more time into doing great designs.

After much consideration, we have concluded that the Bay Area will not be our home base, but we won’t be selling our home until we are truly settled somewhere else. The primary driver is we are tired of how career / ambition drives everything making the Bay area excessive competitive and transactional which is toxic to authentic community.

I am focused on

• Identifying and practicing simple, core truths which are at the heart of human flourishing. My short list right now is love, community (with a particular focus on church), gratitude->generosity, working hard / developing mastery.
• Writing down lessons from my career (especially engineering management) and doing a bit of coaching / mentoring engineering leaders.
• Finding opportunities to engage, coach, and mentor college students and folks in the early stage of their careers.
• Understanding and applying modern AI systems. Participated in 4AI cohort thinking about how AI can be used in a way that leads to human flourishing. Experimenting with self-hosted models and agents to automate various bits of like. Thinking about how AI is changing the construction and operations of software systems… been thinking about this since being industry advisor at the formation of RADlab in 2005.

2022-2026 Retrospective

• We have had joys and grief. Several wedding, meeting new friends, reconnecting with old friends, lost two parents and several other relatives, numerous friend struggling with cancer. Regularly being reminded that in the midst of it all, we have the opportunity to choose our response. To be grateful for what we have, or to be grumpy. Grateful is a lot better.
• We spent time in Portugal, Taiwan, Japan, Costa Rica, France, Spain, UK, Iceland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Kenya, Bolivia, Brazil, Morocco, Mexico and a varied of cities in the US. Longest stretch was in Portland. Highlight was walking 500 miles of the Camino de Santiago in May 2023.
• Enjoying using a simplified set of possessions which mostly fit in 23l daypack.
• Thinking about how love is the heart of everything important and what are the ingredients of a healthy community. Some lessons from the Camino and seeing the value of being present are closely related.
• Striving to promote meaningful interactions, find common ground, and get people to work together to create a society where all humans can flourish.

Think like a Scientist

It is my observation that many people don’t “think”… they just react and/or go with the flow. It is said that an unexamined life is not worth living. I would rather say an unexamined life is a squandered life, missing a richness and countless opportunities. Too many people are “insane”… repeating the same behavior while expecting the results to change. Life should be lived as a giant experiment… Have a theory which is falsifiable, run an experiment, evaluate the results, update theory, repeat.

There are many things which can help people think more clearly.

• Take an experimental approach to life
• Reasoning from First Principals. Systems Thinking, Models based thinking
• Exploring alternatives such as championed by de Bono: lateral thinking, thinking hats, etc
• Minimizing bias
• Various other meta-cognition techniques
• one and two way gates

Peter Attia covered some of what I have been slowly writing about in his Thinking Scientifically show.

Technology & Business

I had a good career and worked with some amazing people. I learned a lot. I tried to pass those lessons on to my coworkers and people I mentored. I am now trying pass those lessons on to the next generation.

• How to become a good software engineer and systems designer. First, but far from the most important topic read classic system papers.
• AI for Software Engineers: Limits and Benefits of AI, Useful Tools, changing workflows
• Help a friend develop a SecDevOps leadership curriculum for his university
• Writing down some of the lessons I learned during my career with a focus on building a healthy culture and be a strong technical leader.

Simple Truths for Human Thriving

I think the secret to a thriving life is quite simply to state “Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself” but very challenging to live out. The maturituring process has several keys:

• Making “Love” the highest value, the controlling theme of life.
• Maturing / Character: emotional regulation
• Building relationship with others and investing in community. Writing up core principles and practices which encourage healthy community
• Cultivating gratitude which results in generosity
• Working hard to build mastery

A key tool is simplicity, or essentialism. It’s not adding more to life, but knowing what to subtract. Without slack, you would notice and be able to respond to opportunities. To many possessions are a burden which tie you down.

Community

I would love to find an ideal community… but of course that doesn’t exist. I know the best way to “find” a community is to build one. Invest time and love into a group of people. To have the perspective of an investor rather than consumer. Key ingredients seem to be: people having margin (slack), value other people more than things or achievement, have learned Maslow’s lesson that self transcendence > self actualization.

• Community is the environment that allows humans to flourish. It’s where love is practiced and the where people grow.
• What are the ingredients that make intentional communities thrive or fail.
• Walking the camino let me witness how quickly community can form when people have time, have a common bond, and choose kindness / vulnerability. It breaks my heart that so many people experienced community and deep acceptance for the first time while walking the Camino. We need to do better.
• Bridging political divides. Wondering if a developmental approach to politics might overcome the failing of centrism. Thinking about how Marshall Rosen’s Non Violent Communication can be applied to mediation. I have been intrigued by citizen assemblies.
• Working on writing down what I have learned about what makes a healthy church. First bit is church essentials.
• Cohousing. My friend Wesley is working to establish Coastside Cohousing

How to Have a Good Healthspan

… and put those thinking into practice. Inspired by Stanford Lifestyle Medicine, Peter Attia, and my personal study of the material.

• Recover from injury to hip abductors – DONE!
• Continue to learn Tai Chi
• VO2max >45 in 2026
• Get good at jump rope and other things to improve balance

Later

• Refine my Centenarian decathlon goals
• Find a Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS) (or equiv) trainer?
• Improve breathing using o2trainer.
• Blood flow restriction training using kaatsu?

AI

• coach vs crutch
• exploration, not replacement
• scarce resources: content and attention
• trust and truth: garbage in, garbage out

Home Base? / Random Travel

We lived a semi-nomadic existence from 2021-2025 to determine where to plant ourselves for the next season of life. Staying in the Bay Area has a lot going for it (weather, resources, natural beauty, we know the area & people), an intoxicating energy, but the area is super expensive, we expect many of our peers will leave the area post retirement, and the culture is drive by ambition with results in people who are too busy, career driven, transactional. The area is fairly toxic to healthy community. My dream location has the following characteristics

• a place where we have opportunities to contribute to the community
• a vital church we can serve at
• weather than is friendly to outdoor activities
• reasonable cost of living
• medium size multi-cultural city
• at least one university
• resources needed to do good design work
• Car not required for daily life (e.g. walkable, effective mass transit).

No city has all the things I am looking for. Places with some of the elements that we decided to consider: stay in Bay Area (Mid-Penisula, Berkeley, SF), Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa/Sebastopol, San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Portland/Vancouver, Seattle, Las Vegas, Austin, Denver/Boulder, Salt Lake City, Madison, Boston, NYC, DC/Northern Virgina, Raleigh-Durham, Charlotte, Asheville, Chattanooga, Nashville, and Miami. We eliminated many of these cities after just a couple of weeks trying them out. We also considered international destinations which included Vienna, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Greece, and Cypress. We love Aukland, Melbourne, and several UK cities, but they aren’t practical given their strict immigration policies.

Vancouver/Portland scored pretty high. We love the city’s ethos, made good friends in a few months, can regularly visit the Portland Japanese garden, and enjoy the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Housing is much more reasonably priced than the Bay Area, where isn’t? :). It is also closer to our two oldest kids. We have both enjoyed The Well Church, and Mark appreciates Bridgetown Church and Imago Dei. As an extra bonus, Washington has no state income tax, Portland has not sales tax. The biggest downside is the dark/cold/wet winter which is many months long.

In 2025 decided to give the Bay Area (our home in Mountain View) another try. After around a year we find ourselves thinking that maybe we are done with the Bay Area as a home base. It is possible to construct a counter formational space for people who would want to embrace deep friendship and community but it seems like there are many places it would be easily to flourish. Where will home base be?

Our current plan is to make Portland/Vancouver our home base. We will likely traveling during the worst of the winter for Jackie. Jackie has always wanted to live in the EU, especially Spain. We might end up spending most of the year in Portland, and winter in Spain. This would change if Mark finds a nonprofit / university to invest his time in, or Jackie finds a place that would enable her to put more time into doing great designs.

No matter where “home base is” will regularly visit in Portland near our oldest kids, the Bay to see old friends, with trips to Columbus to spend time with our aging parents. Jackie (and maybe me) will periodically take ~1-2 month trips to experience life and cultures outside the US.